richard noble rrr:1 Articles 17/1/09 17:52 Page 22 The Noble purpose

The creator of the ARV Super 2 and the Farnborough F1 is again on the warpath on behalf of British engineering, as Pat Malone reports

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ichard Noble’s CV reads like one of end. Love him or hate him – which many of ARV Super 2 those business cards you used to get in his acquaintances manage to do at the same He learned to fly in order to polish his personal Rjoke shops – ‘revolutions put down, time – he is the kind of man around whom disciplines ahead of the Thrust 2 record rockets test-flown, virgins cured’, that sort of high achievers congregate, and by whom they attempt, and being Richard Noble, looked at thing. A serial doer of difficult deeds, he is are imposed upon to achieve more. Setbacks the agricultural Cessna in which he was being famous for having held the world land speed that would crush ordinary men are mere trained and thought: ‘There has to be a better record for 14 years before putting together the irritations to him when he has his sights on a way…’ But we all did that, didn’t we. The Thrust SSC project that took the record through goal. He is the reason Britain holds the land difference is that Noble not only designed a the , where it remains today. He speed record, and he’s the reason nobody new aircraft, the ARV Super 2, but put it into has mounted four-wheel-drive safaris the dismisses the 1000 mph car out of hand. the air, certificated it for public transport and length of Africa and sold chemicals and It’s hard to put your finger on what Richard got it into production. The ARV had a number concrete floors, had a shy at lifting the Atlantic Noble does or how he does it. He’s not a of problems that needed to be fixed – the Blue Riband and created the ARV Super 2 trained designer or engineer, yet he original Hewland engine was a weak point – training aircraft and the Farnborough F1 air understands design and engineering in great but what killed it after 30-odd aircraft had taxi. Now he’s in the headlines again as the depth. He’s not a trained driver, yet he drove been produced was the attitude of institutional man who says he will build the world’s first Thrust 2 to 633 mph. What he does is investors. At the first whiff of trouble, the thousand-mile-an-hour car, and when Richard persevere: with small teams and large projects money began to dry up, exactly when it was Noble says he’ll do something you won’t get he has to multitask on a wide scale, and with most needed to move the aircraft on. long odds at William Hill’s against him doing limited finance there is seldom room for error – “Investment has been liberalised since it. life is an endless fight right down to the wire then,” says Noble, “but the problems remain. The purpose, he says, is to create an iconic and through to completion. It’s very difficult to Mike Hewland once said to me, ‘Richard, I project that will capture the attention of get behind his mask; innocuous personal have a successful gearbox company, but when youngsters everywhere and turn them on to questions are batted off with practised ease, I need to raise investment money, I’m talking the wonderful world of engineering, just like in and when he’s explaining his motivation he to a man who moves a piece of paper from the old days when Campbell’s Bluebird, clicks into a groove that tells you it’s not the one pocket to another pocket and takes 15 , the Harrier and the TSR2 raised the first time he’s told this story. It’s percent for doing so. If I’m talking about taking sights of kids of his own generation. Noble understandable – he’s had 30 years of dealing risks with capital, how can I compete for the himself saw John Cobb’s Crusader 1952 jet- with the press. He’s been traduced and money?’ But the investment banks’ gravy train powered challenger on misrepresented more than most, and his has hit the buffers, and we need to ensure that Loch Ness in 1952, an experience which greatest efforts have been roundly denigrated; money is available for long-term manufacturing infected him for life. At that time, of course, after Thrust SSC shattered the sound barrier, projects that will produce a real return. Britain had two dozen companies making the newspapers chuntered on about how “The financial institutions are hopeless aeroplanes and ten more making engines for pointless it all was. But publicity has been the when it comes to financing these projects and them; today we’re hanging on to our aviation lifeblood of much of what he has attempted, I’m very critical of them. I find them badly heritage by our fingertips. Can we recreate an and he must grit his teeth and answer stupid organised, arrogant and disconnected from industry we have all but destroyed? Richard questions with a smile. His story is told in his reality. The ARV went into production on Noble thinks it’s not too late, if only we can own words in his excellent book Thrust, but minimal finance, which made the organisation mint the engineers and designers we so suffice it to say that seeing John Cobb’s vulnerable – we couldn’t take any kind of desperately need and fix the elitist disconnect Crusader lit a fire that no amount of stultifying knocks. We had tremendous problems with of the financiers. British pessimism can quench, even though the CAA, who were simply so backward! Years The situation is dire. The government Cobb was killed in an appalling accident a few later they said to me, ‘Richard, we learned so recognises the problem, partly because the days later. Noble mounted the Thrust 2 world much from your project…’ and I though yeah, Ministry of Defence is obligated to hire British attempt with £175 obtained it cost us a bloody fortune to teach you. engineers and can’t get anywhere near enough from a scrap merchant for the wreckage of the “But we got the ARV up and flying, and Thrust 1 car –a gas turbine powered concept operating costs were about 20 percent lower racer he built himself, and since then his life than traditional trainers. Fuel burn was less, has been one long round of raising money and it was a much nicer aeroplane to fly. As a from the barely-interested to fund the next company you’re stuck with overheads like challenge. regulatory costs and you have to have a high production rate in order to amortise that. We Left: Richard Noble drove Thrust 2 to 633mph had 2,000 sales enquiries, 126 people Below: whatever happened to...? Noble and working and the buzz around the factory was the ARV Super 2 stand between the Edgley fantastic. Every week there was a new aircraft Optica and Chichester-Miles Leopard at off the line, the quality got better and better we Farnborough ’86 were working our way along the learning curve when we hit problems with the engine. As

of them. Noble has canvassed manufacturing industry and the utilities and finds that the picture is far worse than the MOD says. “The reservoir of engineering expertise Britain once had is running dry,” he says. “Some companies have entire departments dedicated to finding engineers, bringing them in from all over the world. But Britain is beginning to realise that without engineering, technology and manufacturing, we don’t have a hope. The City casino is shut, and the country now knows it has to work for a living. Engineering and manufacturing must become the foundation stones of our economy.” If anyone can overcome Britain’s inertia and set us off in a new direction, it’s Richard Noble. A silver-tongued persuader who has loosened the purse strings of some of the tightest corporations in the country, he has occasionally trampled on the delicate sensibilities of friends, supporters and enemies alike, but most will cut him endless slack because he’s a one-off, an ideas man who can drive the wildest projects through to the bitter

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with any new project we needed time and money to work through them, but the financial guys could not understand what we were trying to do. We wouldn’t get full margin until we got 100 aircraft out of the door, and we got 30-something before we ran out of money.” Ironically, the ARV Super 2 is now being resurrected by a company called Opus in the United States, where the intention is to market it in the Light Sport category. Richard Noble no longer has any connection with the aircraft. “I put a lot into it, but when it’s over you just have to let go,” he says. “You can’t carry baggage around.” In fact Noble’s own ARV ended up upside down in a field after it suffered an engine failure. “I was flying from Tatenhill to Popham when the water pump bearing failed,” he says. “The pump was belt-driven, so the belt failed. The first indication was the smell, then I had a

quick glance at the water temperature gauge n w o r

and saw the needle moving across the gauge, B n i

and I thought, oh hell , this isn’t good… t s u

“I had about 2500 feet under me so I did a A 180 and headed back to Tatenhill about 15 miles away. I knew the engine wouldn’t last that’s four accidents a year. The problem with Above: the ARV Super 2 is being resurrected long without cooling, and sure enough it soon SE IFR aircraft is that if the engine fails people under the name of Opus in the United States started popping and banging so I shut it down are going to get hurt. You may be at 20 or and started to glide. I found the ideal field, big, 30,000 feet, you may have 30 minutes on the ploughed and recently harrowed, and set up way down, but the odds are against you. they wanted to invest. We didn’t send out a an approach. But as I later discovered, the Nonetheless we thought it acceptable. prospectus or solicit investments, but people coolant blow-off valve which maintains “The Caravan is a very sensible aircraft but approached us anyway, and the system pressure in the cooling system had stuck, so a speed of 160 kt is just too slow – you can’t seemed to supply continuous funds with the engine had turned into a boiler, built up a get the annual productivity and your minimal hassle. Eventually we had 400 head of steam and inflated the radiator, depreciation and fixed costs per mile is too shareholders and 40 people working, but just causing much greater drag because the rad high. Speed is vital to increase your revenue as it became clear that the plane was going to was no longer air-porous and it also increased and reduce per-hour costs, so we looked for work the internet investments suddenly and its area, creating a large air brake. All of a 320 knots and 1500 nm range. inexplicably dried up. One single chap arrived sudden L over D was terrible and I had to “The problem was to finance it. I went shortly after and put up quite a lot of money. make a 25 degree approach to maintain flying round the City and failed everywhere. We put He and I didn’t seem to have the same speed. The difficulty then becomes judging the up a website and people sent us emails saying objectives and when the shareholders handed flare with an aircraft that was making an approach like a Space Shuttle. I got nicely positioned but flared too low and hit hard. The Richard Noble with the Farnborough F1 energy went through the structure and broke mockup at the Farnborough Airshow just about everything but we had a Bottom: after Noble left, the F1 became the superplastic forward fuselage and I was Kestrel and attracted Middle Eastern money unhurt. The aircraft passed into the possession of the insurance company and I haven’t been near an ARV since.” Farnborough F1 Noble had a Turbo Arrow which he kept at Farnborough and used on business, and the economics of running his own plane led him to his next aviation project, the five-seat Farnborough F1. “Aircraft like the Cirrus SR22 and the Diamond DA40 are being looked on now as air taxi planes, but the concept was new when the F1 was first mooted,” he says. “The privately owned or corporate aircraft model doesn’t work. The problem is utilisation – business jets can be flying 500 to 600 hours a year, but they need to be doing 1000 or 1200 to get the cost per mile down to sensible numbers. Jets are the wrong way to go because you haven’t got the short-field performance to get into the smaller airfields you need to use, you’ve got an excessive fuel burn, poor fan efficiency and environmentally it’s a disaster. Remember, 100% of the CO2 produced by every aircraft that has ever flown over 30,000ft is still up there.” In 1998 the FAA allowed commercial single-engine IFR flying, opening the way for aircraft such as the Cessna Caravan to make a living. Noble says: “The P&W PT6 had an uncommanded shutdown rate of just one in 250,000 hours, and given the enormous cost savings that looked feasible. However if you have 1000 aircraft doing 1000 hours a year,

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users were coming in for showed that they wanted technology, and more technology. Noble says: “They didn’t want it dumbed down, either – we found this great hunger for technology, so we gave it to them. And they in turn came up with some really good ideas. The Russians would say, why don’t you try this, and this, and the children would come in with really profound and basic questions that made you think, hell, did we get that right? “This is what education should be all about. Suppose you wanted to learn to fly and you had no money and all you could do was look at aeroplanes and read books on aviation law and so forth – you’d give up very quickly. Or if you wanted to play guitar and you hadn’t got access to one, and you can only study the theory of music. You would only be able to develop as fast as the teacher could give you lessons . This is what the schoolkids are being asked to do. Bloodhound SSC will have rocket and jet They’re learning maths from dry texts, physics engines to help cope with acceleration by rote, there are no living examples for them issues on the way to 1000 mph to understand and fully study, it’s all abstract information. It was Science Minister Lord Drayson who said we needed an iconic project the rights to him at an EGM , it was time to create a massive new challenge so they can to grip their imagination, and then we realised shake hands and move on. stretch themselves. we could put all the technology on the web so “After that experience I came to the Bloodhound SSC will be created in full all the schools can follow it. This is unique –the realisation that SE IFR was never going to public view, with nothing held back. Unlike defence industry, Formula 1, Nascar or NASA work. We were working on the basis of one Formula One teams, who have to work in can’t do it because of military and IPR secrecy uncommanded shutdown per quarter million secrecy to maintain their competitive edge, a issues. And just as we expected, even though flying hours, but we should have been looking speed record team can afford to be open – the its early days, there is huge interest from the at the commanded shutdowns too. No pilot car is pioneering, the new technology is of teachers.” shuts down an engine unless there is a real uncertain value and the land speed record Noble quotes figures which show the problem, and a quick search of UK rules have minimal design restriction – number of science and technology graduates in commanded shutdown data, when added to meaning that every challenger is substantially the United States increased by a factor of ten uncommanded shutdowns, results in risk different. Thus one team’s technology is during the Mercury-Apollo space programme, figures which are far too high for passenger unlikely to be of value to a competitor. Every then fell back after it ended. “Bloodhound transportation. step forward will be made public on the won’t put a man on the moon, but it will “In order to overcome that problem we Bloodhound website, and the idea is to share provide that iconic attraction that will hopefully started to develop the ACE, a family of aircraft the project with hundreds of schools so the cause children and students to say, that’s what with a counter-rotating prop system driven by students can study the project live and can be I want to be part of, I want to be an engineer... two independent and rotor-dedicated engines, interactively involved. “This is exactly the right time to do it providing centreline thrust with the security of During the Thrust SSC project the website because we have a bloody great crisis in two engines. Propulsion coefficient goes up proved to be the focus of the ‘Mach 1 Club’, the finance, where people have woken up to the from 0.8 or 0.85 to about 0.9, which makes a army of 5,000 supporters who helped bankroll fact that we can no longer live by shuffling huge difference – the Mach number goes up, the attempt. The financial establishment had, other people’s money and creaming off a cut. the productivity goes up, the fixed cost as usual, run a mile when asked for The British have always been world leaders in rate/mile goes down and suddenly you have sponsorship money, but by the time the technology and engineering – we had 28 something that’s streets ahead of single- successful run was made in 1997 the Thrust aeroplane companies at one time – but it’s engined IFR. Its hugely efficient. Early aircraft SSC website was doing a conservative 11 been under-funded, under-appreciated and with counter-rotating props like the Fairey million pages a day and had millions of unique under-valued. That is no longer the case, and Gannet suffered from high noise levels, but users all over the world. Analysis of what those there’s no reason why, if we get this right, we prop design has come a long way and you can cannot once again get into the aviation reduce the noise to acceptable levels. Below: Richard Noble with Andy Green, who manufacturing industry in a meaningful way. Governments wanted to take part in the will drive Bloodhound SSC There’s a huge new developing out programme, but once again we had to give up there.” I because we were banging our heads against a brick wall in the financial world. My partner Barrie Baxter asked, ‘Are we going to spend the rest of our lives being turned down by people who will never understand the potential?’ Bloodhound SSC The 1,000 mph car project goes under the name of Bloodhound, a tribute to the great aerodynamicist Ron Ayers who did so much to make Thrust SSC a success. Ayers designed the aerodynamics on the successful Bloodhound 2 SAM missile, the UK’s frontline defence missile for 30 years. A quiet and unassuming genius, he typifies the kind of talent that tends to coalesce around Richard Noble – true heroes like Glynne Bowsher, John Ackroyd, Jeremy Bliss and Andy Green. (As with Thrust SSC, Andy Green will drive Bloodhound.) They are all pre-eminent in their fields, and quite often they’re just hanging around, under-occupied and under- appreciated, waiting for someone like Noble to

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